July 4, 2021

Sitting around thinking about doing another season of The Host. I pay for it, might as well. Three people have now asked me about it and expressed interest in doing more. I've been waiting for a new idea, a new twist on it, but it might be worth just going back to the original idea: unconnected calls about emotional/relational conflicts with a sci-fi or supernatural overlay. I could incorporate Brent Forrester's sketch structure: premise, escalation, escalation, twist. Have people prepare one or two pitches answering the following questions: 1) who is the character, 2) what's one thing that's surprising about the character or that makes them complex, 3) what is the character's emotional/relationship conflict, 4) what is the character's sci-fi or supernatural conflict, 5) how does the Host respond? Fuck, that would be easy enough, and probably fruitful. Have people meet to pitch - it could be over zoom. Give notes, ideas. Go away to write. Come back with first drafts. Have a table read. Go away to rewrite. Boom. Finished. Record. The enemy of churning out stuff -- and by churning out stuff improving -- seems to be the time/energy required to make whatever it is. 

I've kind of talked myself into it. I will ignore the feeling until I have time. Or until I just send out the email on impulse. Anyways. I'm gathered here today to finally write my Female Trouble Mlog. 

Mlog Time! 

FEMALE TROUBLE

1974

Directed by: John Waters

Written by: John Waters

Watched: 6/23/21

I just read the Wikipedia summary and really enjoyed it. Basically, a ne’er-do-well and superficial high school student, Dawn Davenport, gets pregnant and drops out. She does crime, beats her daughter, and values beauty overall. She’s hooked up with a beauty salon where the owners think that crime and beauty are the same and turn Dawn into a model. She gets acid thrown on her face and chops off someone’s hand. She does a one-woman show where she shoots a gun into the crowd. She’s sentenced to death. She thanks her fans before being electrocuted in the electric chair. That star she always wanted to be. 

This was a very chaotic movie. And Divine is wonderful. Mink Stole as the daughter is also pretty great and unsettling. It would be interesting to watch this movie as a double feature with Neon Demon. The power of beauty, the intoxication of beauty, the subjectivity of beauty. How we worship it and how it can be like one of those old mad gods. I’m giving it three stars because it was amazing in its bizarreness and equally off-putting, so it cancels out. 

Rating: ★★★